There are many occasions in which waste gasses are disposed of using a flare stack burner. Such burners having conventionally utilized a flare tip comprising a valve body, such as a Coanda body, that is either free floating or spring-loaded against an outlet or valve seat of a gas pipe. Pressurized waste gas lifts the valve body off the valve seat to form a variable opening through which the waste gas is discharged and ignited by a pilot burner to dispose of the waste gas.
The exit velocity of the gas through the variable opening changes in response to the displacement of the valve body off the valve seat. This occurs due to the variable load applied to the valve body by the spring. As pressure increases, the valve body is displaced further from the valve seat.
The exit velocity of the gas past the spring-loaded flare tip increases as the square of the pressure. This can place significant volumetric gas flow limitations on spring-loaded flare tips due to exit velocity limitations (e.g., 400 ft/s) commanded by some environmental standards.
Additionally, at low pressures, conventional flare tips are known to produce “chatter.” Chatter occurs when the gas produces enough pressure to lift the valve body off the valve seat, but not enough pressure to maintain the displacement of the valve body from the valve seat. Instead, the valve body repeatedly lifts off the valve seat and then drops back onto the valve seat in a rapid manner, causing undesirable chatter noise. Additionally, such chatter can potentially damage the valve seat.